Birds – Page 277 – Feathered Photography

Just A Shot That I Like… #9 – Rough-legged Hawk Taking Off

I was looking down on this Rough-legged Hawk from an elevated road when it decided to take off. 1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This shot illustrates both the blessing and the curse of using an attached teleconverter. If I hadn’t been using the tc for this image I’d have had two choices: 1), crop so that the hawk was much smaller in the frame which would have reduced the impact of the image or 2), crop so the bird was still this large in the frame which would have significantly reduced image quality and increased noise. So I’m glad I had the tc on for this shot. However, after take-off this roughie unexpectedly flew past me very close and I clipped or cut off many body parts in most of those images. If I hadn’t been using the tc I’d likely have been able to get some pretty spectacular flight shots with this nice background and good light. You just never know… Ron

Catch Lights in Bird Photography

Broadly defined, a catch light in photography is a reflection of a light source in the eye of a subject. In bird photography, that light source is often the sun and typically appears on the shiny, wet cornea of the bird as a single point reflection. However, as we will see, there are variations on that theme. Catch lights are highly desirable, to the point that many avian photographers simply delete virtually all photos that don’t have them (a painful process, to be sure). Others resort to artificially cloning them into the eye when they don’t appear naturally – a practice that I find distasteful, even dishonest for a nature photographer (that said, I’m not adverse to running an extra round of sharpening or a Levels adjustment to enhance a subtle catch light that already exists). Natural catch lights that are a direct reflection of the sun will appear in the upper half of the eye, usually from the 10 o’clock to the 2 o’clock position, depending on the angle and position of the sun behind the photographer. If the sun is behind the bird (back light) or too high in the sky, that kind of catch light will not be produced. Without “light in the eye”, viewers perceive the eye to be lifeless, “dead” or even evil. For this reason, cinematographers often deliberately eliminate catch lights on “the bad guys” in movies and television. There is almost no difference between the two American Kestrel images above except for the slight head turn in the first shot that allows light from the sun…

Just A Shot That I Like… #8 – Prairie Falcon In Warm Light

I’ve tried and failed for a long time to catch a raptor perched on the darker rocks (Farmington Canyon Complex) that are most common on the southern part of Antelope Island. I think these rocks make much more attractive perches than the almost white and difficult to properly expose Tintic Quartzite boulders on the north portion of the island. Last week I finally succeeded with this Prairie Falcon. 1/1000, f/7.1, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc As an added bonus the sun was just coming up over the Wasatch Mountains so the golden light added some warmth to the image which I like. I only got off a handful of shots but at least the bird turned its head into the light before it flew off. Based on bill color I believe it to be a first year bird. Now if I could only get this close to a Peregrine Falcon in good light… Ron

Harlequin Ducks Along Antelope Island Causeway Have Apparently Been Killed

As many of you are aware there have been three Harlequin Ducks along the Antelope Island causeway for many weeks now – two females and one male. These ducks are extremely rare in Utah as there’s only been a handful of sightings of the species in our state over the years. These three ducks have been enjoyed by bird lovers and others at the first bridge on the causeway for about six weeks this early winter. They were quite approachable by people and were a delight to observe and photograph. According to reports, all three ducks are now dead – “harvested” by hunters. Here’s a link to a very enlightening (in more ways than one) discussion of the reported incident on a hunting forum. Killing these rare ducks along the causeway is apparently perfectly legal. Whether or not it is ethical is very much open to question – including by many in the hunting community. Harlequin Duck. Photo taken on 10/30/11 at first bridge along causeway Female Harlequin Duck – photo taken on 11/17/2011 at first bridge along causeway Male Harlequin Duck coming into breeding plumage – photo taken on 11/17/2011 at first bridge along causeway Though I’m not a hunter I’ve been an avid supporter of hunting for many years – including extolling the positive effects the practice has had on wildlife populations to my high school zoology and biology classes for 33 years. Should it turn out that the person reporting the killings of these ducks has been less than truthful and the birds turn up again in the future I…

Just a Shot That I Like… #7 – Ring-necked Pheasant Roosting In Tree

Many folks think of Ring-necked Pheasants as strictly ground dwelling birds but that’s simply not the case. These pheasants regularly roost in trees at night and the following morning they will often be active in the roost tree for up to an hour before descending to the ground for the rest of the day. 1/800, f/8, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Virtually every time I’ve seen these birds in trees it’s been on very cold, sunny mornings so I’ve always had the impression that they’re sunning themselves to warm up a bit. Usually they flush to the ground for cover before I can get close enough for quality photos but this cooperative male apparently decided that his chill was more of a threat to him than I was. He let me shoot away from close range for quite a while even though he was perhaps 20′ up in the tree and on a very exposed branch. Long-tailed birds like pheasants and magpies can present difficult compositional problems when cropping for presentation but I though this vertical crop worked out well with him on the diagonal perch. Ron

Sometimes the Prey Bites Back

I hope you’ll bear with me but this post will be more about behavior than image quality as I just didn’t have a good light angle for this little drama. As I’ve said elsewhere on this blog, one of my primary goals is to document interesting behaviors and at times that will take priority over the quality of the images. When Rough-legged Hawks dive on prey it can be fairly dramatic. Typically they hover high up over the potential prey for a few moments, then dive fast and at a fairly steep angle. Occasionally they seem to hit the ground so hard that it rattles my teeth, almost making me expect them to bounce on impact. 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This morning I watched this hawk hover, then dive. I think you can see from the wing position that this bird was still traveling at a good clip and at a fairly steep angle when it was only a couple of feet from the ground. The prey was on a hill above me and buried in this vegetation so I didn’t see the impact. 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Often these attempts at prey are unsuccessful but this time the hawk caught a vole (along with a talon-full of debris). The bird came out of the grasses directly toward me but then turned to its left to give me a side view. 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This little vole had a bucket-full of attitude and didn’t want to go down…

Just A Shot That I Like… #6 – Short-eared Owl In Flight With Prey

Sometimes conditions are marginal at best for avian photography and that often seems to be the case for me when I’m presented with an otherwise wonderful opportunity. Then the decision must be made – go ahead and shoot anyway, knowing it’s likely that I won’t get any keepers or just pack it in and watch and enjoy the birds? 1/640, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, noise reduction to background Such was the case with this Short-eared Owl at Montana’s rugged and remote Centennial Valley. It was an overcast day and there generally wasn’t enough light for photographing birds in flight but this male was regularly delivering voles to his family and would occasionally fly right by me as he did so. I could have removed my teleconverter to get a little more shutter speed but then the owl would be quite small in the frame so I just decided to fire away and hope for the best. Even at ISO 800 (the absolute limit for my 7D without getting too much noise) I was often getting shutter speeds of 1/500 or slower at f/5.6 – just not fast enough to get birds in flight sharp. I got lucky with this shot. As the owl was coming in, the clouds behind me opened up slightly to allow a little more light on the bird and a shutter speed of 1/640 – just enough to get good sharpness on a relatively large and slow flying bird if your focus is well locked on to the subject. The still shaded Centennial Mountains provided…

Lamenting the Loss of a Favorite Perch

This was a perch I had a love-hate relationship with for almost four years. It was a small, very old and sun-bleached snag along the road down unit 1 at Farmington Bay Wildlife Management Area. I loved it because American Kestrels liked to use it as a hunting perch, it was close to the road, not too high and it was natural and photogenic. I hated it because it was on the east side of the road (I could only shoot from the road in my vehicle – open the door and the kestrel skedaddles) which meant that I was usually shooting into the sun in the morning which is my favorite time to photograph birds. Back-lit kestrels are generally not a pretty sight… That road down unit 1 is closed for the nesting season (March through September) and I was very disappointed to see on my first trip down the road this fall that the snag was gone. It may have fallen down on its own, been removed by refuge managers (which I doubt) or perhaps it was vandalized – I just don’t know. But I will miss it, as will the kestrels I’m sure. Avian photographers on this continent are well aware of how difficult this species is to get close to – they’re very skittish and almost never allow a close approach for photography. That changes in mid-winter when it’s very cold. They simply are much more reluctant to fly when it’s that frigid and the photographer can occasionally get quite close to them, especially when shooting from a vehicle. But most nature photographers…

Just A Shot That I Like… #5 – Great Horned Owl In Tamarisk

We recently found a Great Horned Owl that likes to hang out in some tamarisk close to the Great Salt Lake. Usually the owl is deeply buried in the foliage and can’t even be seen unless you know where to look but of course getting clear shots of the bird is impossible in that situation. 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc However on cold early mornings this bird likes to get a little warming sun and has found one spot where it’s open enough that it can soak in some rays and still feel safe and hidden by the enclosing tamarisk. By careful maneuvering I can get a relatively clear view of the owl from a close vantage point (without disturbing it). It’s a busy setting for the bird but I like that the spot it has chosen to warm up in is so dense with leaves that they almost seem to wrap protectively around the owl. We’ve had several opportunities with this bird in exactly the same spot over the last couple of weeks. At least we thought it was a single bird but then yesterday sharp-eyed Mia noticed (while editing and culling images) that the plumages don’t match from day-to-day. There are two owls that use this spot and we have photos of both of them. A pleasant surprise! Ron

A Very Cooperative Rough-legged Hawk

In a previous post I mentioned that I had been encouraged by the number of Rough-legged Hawks (roughies) I’ve been seeing this fall. Well I’m delighted to report that the situation continues to improve. On virtually every photo expedition over the last few weeks I’ve seen several of them and on two recent trips we’ve made about a dozen sightings of different individuals each time. However getting good photos of them is a different story altogether. After a season in the high arctic they’re very unapproachable and even when I have been able to get reasonably close they’re usually perched on an unattractive sign or post and take off away from me. All that changed a few days ago though when we found one very cooperative bird. This species has the most different male and female plumages (sexual dimorphism) of all our buteos and I’m quite sure this is a light phase female. 1/1000, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc We first spotted this bird on a low wooden post that resembled a piling and I was pleasantly surprised that it let us approach (in my vehicle) with no signs of nervousness. It was early on a cold, frosty morning and while looking through the viewfinder I assumed that the material on top of the post was spider silk that had collected dew and then frozen. But after looking at the photos at home I wasn’t so sure so the next day I walked over to the post to check it out. Duh – should have known. It was frosted bison fur. This was Antelope Island…

Just A Shot That I Like…#4 – Cliff Swallow In Flight

I’ll admit that part of the reason I like this image as well as I do is the degree of difficulty involved in getting the shot. Swallows are small and very fast which makes for a difficult flight subject. For years I’ve tried getting sharp, well-lit, frame-filling images of them and failed miserably. My best shots seemed to have one or more of the following issues – soft, too small in the frame for good detail, poor head turn or no light in the eye. But the most common flaw was poor light on the underside of the bird. So I decided to change my tactics – yes, I’m a slow learner at times… Cliff Swallow 1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 800, 500 f/4 It finally dawned on me that to consistently get light under the bird I had to shoot when the sun was very low, morning or evening. But when the sun is that low the light is also relatively weak which means higher ISO’s and apertures that provide less depth of field. To help mitigate that problem I took off the teleconverter (at times swallows can be relatively easy to get close to) to give me a little more light, faster shutter speeds and more responsive autofocus. And it worked! I got this shot and several others I liked on the first morning I tried the new tactics. Don’t get me wrong – swallows in flight are still extremely challenging (on this morning I took about 600 shots to get 3 or 4 I was pleased with) but at least it was now possible. Another…

Prairie Falcon – A Nemesis Resolved

Every avian photographer has their “nemesis birds” – a species or two that the gods of photography have foiled any and every attempt at getting quality images of. For me the Prairie Falcon has been at or near the top of that list. I particularly love to photograph raptors but locating and then getting close to this falcon in good light has eluded me for five years now. But two days ago I resolved that dilemma! 1/4000, f/5.6, ISO 640, 1.4 tc We first spotted this bird coming towards us along the Antelope Island causeway just as the sun peeked over the Wasatch. It soon landed on this stump and in good light but I wasn’t quite as close to the bird as I’d like to have been. Soon it lifted off and hunted the causeway going west, causing quite a ruckus among the gulls, shorebirds and ducks as it approached them. It was fairly easy to track the falcon by watching for groups of panicked birds taking to the air. 1/1000, f/5.6, ISO 800, 1.4 tc Next it landed on this interesting rock and I was able to get a little closer. The background is a little funky with the harsh color transition between water and rocky shoreline passing through the bird but I liked the perch and the good look at the entire bird, including tail. I suspect that this falcon has learned the fine art of thievery. Earlier this week we observed a Prairie Falcon along the causeway chase off a Peregrine Falcon from its Ruddy Duck…

Just a Shot That I Like…#3 – Chukar In Snow

The Chukar is a type of partridge that was introduced to Antelope Island many years ago and they thrive there. They’re originally native to Asia and are a popular game bird, though their range in North America is restricted because they thrive only in areas of low rainfall and humidity. 1/2500, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I found this one last winter on a boulder just after a fresh snow fall. Though the white part of the background may look like clouds it is actually a snowy hillside with blue sky above. I like the soft colors, coy pose, rocky perch and the snow in the setting with the blue sky up top. Some may miss seeing the feet but that’s a trade-off I’ll gladly make to catch this handsome bird in the snow. Ron

Rough-legged Hawks Return To Utah

For the last couple of years I’ve had very little luck locating Rough-legged Hawks (roughies) here in northern Utah, which frustrates me because I think they’re among the most handsome and photogenic of all the raptors and I love to photograph them. These birds breed in the high arctic so they aren’t here at all during the summer. Most of them winter in the “lower 48” but they are highly nomadic and their numbers in a particular area fluctuate according to the availability of their rodent prey. This year I’m greatly encouraged because in the last ten days or so I’ve seen many of these striking hawks. 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This one was atop a perch that is photographically challenging – a Tintic Quartzite boulder on the north end of Antelope Island. These rocks often blow out the whites on the sun side, especially if the bird on them is dark. I’ve deleted many a shot of a raven on one of these boulders. 1/3200, f/5.6, ISO 800, f/4, 1.4 tc This morning I had a wonderful (though sometimes frustrating) time with the roughies on the island. The highlight of the morning came when I was trying to sneak up on a kestrel perched in a rabbit brush. As I did so I noticed a gull flying right toward the kestrel but I quickly ignored it and concentrated on the kestrel. Then, at the last second, something in my mind said “hey, that was no gull” just as the bird swooped low…

Ferruginous Hawks of Utah’s West Desert

The Ferruginous Hawk is a strikingly handsome raptor with its stocky build, white underparts and rufous coloration. It is the largest North American hawk and has several distinctive features including the fact that its legs are feathered all the way down to the feet. The Rough-legged Hawk is the only other hawk on this continent to share this trait. I’ve had a devil of a time getting many photos of this species that I like. For me they’ve been difficult to find in the first place and then there’s the issue of getting near enough to them for quality images as they generally don’t allow a close approach. My best luck with the species has been in the foothills of Utah’s west desert mountain ranges. 1/1250, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I found this bird earlier this week and spent quite a while “sneaking” up on it very slowly in my pickup. I ended up getting reasonably close before it flew off. The hawk is relaxed enough with me in its presence to perform a nice wing stretch. 1/1000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc These birds tend to hunt high off the ground and no matter how slowly I try to approach them while they’re in the air they usually maintain a minimum distance from my truck that is too far away for good photographs. Very occasionally however one will apparently become curious about me and fly in close – always with its eye on me and not on any potential prey on the ground. …

Category: Birds